The state BJP president Ashok Parnami came down on the opposition’s criticism of the BJP government with tabled figures of the governments achievement over the past four years. Addressing the media on the evening of Vasundhara Raje led government in state, the BJP president also had on his disposal tally of the awards and initiatives held by the present government.
“The opposition has been making baseless allegations, they do not have facts and figures on their side. Its on these figures that credibility of statements stands,” said Parnami. “Raje government’s works have been acclaimed across the country and have received several prestigious awards including CM Raje being awarded as ‘Digital leader of the Year’ in 2016-17,” Parnami asserted.
In a comparative statement of performance he showed that under the present government’s four year tenure till October of this year the electricity production has increased by 6938.21 MW where the increase in the previous government’s five year tenure was 3953.89 ...

Though third front has not succeeded in forming a government in Gujarat in the past three decades but it may cut into the vote share of BJP and Congress.
Out of 93 seats that go to polls on Thursday, at least 20 seats have three or more candidates.
On Sanand seat, former BJP MLA from Viramgam is contesting as independent as he did not get ticket this time. The BJP gave ticket to defected Congress MLA Karamshi Makwana's son Kanu Makwana and Kama Rathod is up in arms at BJP. Pushpaben Dabhi is the Congress candidate on this seat. Besides this, BJP dissidents Kirit Patel and Dinesh Thakor also have contested independently on Bechraji and Patan seats respectively posing the challenge to party candidate.
The muscleman and BJP candidate Madhu Srivastav has been challenged by fomer BJP president of Vadodara district Dharmendrasinh Vaghela who is contesting as independent. Former BJP leader and now Rashtriya Samajvadi Party leader Rajesh Ayre is contesting from Vadodara city's Sayajigunj seat and now the poll ...

The Delhi High Court today disposed of former TMC leader Mukul Roy's plea alleging phone tapping, after the Centre and the West Bengal government said his numbers were not being intercepted.
The order was passed by Justice Vibhu Bakhru after he perused the affidavits filed by the two governments. The court, however, gave Roy the liberty to approach it again if he finds any concrete evidence substantiating his allegations.
Former Trinamool Congress MP, who has now joined the BJP, had sought a CBI probe into the alleged surveillance and tapping of his phone by the West Bengal police. Roy has alleged that while he was in West Bengal, he always found that the local police were monitoring his movements.
The plea has claimed that similar apprehensions were put on record by several other persons, including union minister and BJP leader Babul Supriyo.
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Social activist Anna Hazare has said he hoped that no Arvind Kejriwal emerged from his movement again.
Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo Kejriwal had taken part in Hazare's anti-corruption movement in 2011. Subsequently, he had parted ways with the social activist and launched his own political outfit. "I hope no Kejriwal comes out of my movement again," he told reporters here after addressing a public meeting at the Shahid Smarak here yesterday. Hazare said a big rally would be organised in the national capital on March 23 and urged farmers to join it in huge numbers.
He accused the erstwhile UPA government at the Centre of failing to act on the Jan Lokpal Bill. "The (Narendra) Modi government later diluted the provisions of the Jan Lokpal Bill. Both the Congress and the BJP are guilty (in this regard)," the 80-year-old social activist said. Lamenting that even after 70 years of achieving independence, democracy, in its true sense, was yet to come to India, Hazare said, "We do not ...

BJP's National General Secretary Ram Madhav delivered a lecture on "Swami Vivekananda's teachings" to the faculty members of Delhi University (DU) on Tuesday. This was during their ongoing refresher course entitled 'Indian Culture: Thoughts and Thinkers.'
Urging faculty members to teach students the writings of Swami Vivekananda, Madhav said, "Today's youth need to read and understand his writings to have a better understanding of Indian culture and tradition."
"Patriotism and pride for the nation is most important traits the youth should possess. And, Swami Vivekananda's writings can teach them that," he said. Madhav also reminded the class, packed with faculty members, about the colonial rule in the country.
DNA on December 4, has reported that some faculty members who had attended the course, had claimed that "biased" and "irrational" topics had been taught to them during the course. Claiming that most of the speakers addressing the course were either "former RSS pracharaks" or "right-wing ...

Central Gujarat, once a Congress' fort, is slipping from its hands gradually. The lower voting in Saurashtra has worried the ruling party and it now plans to compensate a part of its loss from central region of the state.
It is dominated by the Patel and Thakor (OBC) communities and both are going edge to edge having socio political importance in this region considering Kheda, Anand and some part of Vadodara districts, whereas tribal communities are big in number in Dahod, Panchmahals and Chhota Udepur districts.
In 2007 Assembly polls, the region excluding Vadodara city's three seats had 41 seats of which Congress got 22 seats and alliance party NCP got two seats, while BJP got 16 seats and one went to independent candidate.
After new delimitation, 35 seats excluding Vadodara's five urban seats were formed and first polls were held in 2012. BJP won 16 seats and an independent came in support to the party, while Congress and NCP alliance got 18 seats with Congress's 17 seats. This indicates that BJP ...

A day before Raje government 4 years anniversary, the Congress on Tuesday unveiled a ‘digital countdown billboard’ at the party headquarters and expressed confidence in registering a victory in the assembly polls. The Congress party leaders also staged a protest at the district headquarters against the government’s celebration and called it a waste of public money.
Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee chief Sachin Pilot in a press conference unveiled the clock and also released a book detailing fulfillment of claims and budget announcements made by the BJP so far under the rule.
“It is immoral for the BJP government to celebrate the anniversary by spending public money. If it wants to celebrate, it should use party fund. The party leaders have protested against the misrule of the government which has been a complete failure to meet the promises committed by the party,” Pilot said at press conference held at party headquarters.
Accusing the saffron party-led government of increasing rate of crimes, ...

In all matters Arunachal Pradesh, worries pertaining to intrusion of any kind emanate from the neighbouring China. An intrusion of a different kind, however, has been reported from our other contentious neighbour, Pakistan.
In the recently concluded civil services exam, conducted by the Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC), several questions were lifted from a forum for aspirants of the Pakistan civil services examination.
Aspirants in Arunachal Pradesh alleged that majority of the questions were lifted from the site 'www.cssforum.com.pk'. To add to their woes, in the public administration question paper, 50 questions were a repeat of the Union Public Services Exam's (UPSC) 2008 question paper. Also, stickers for the form numbers were manually written and papers were handed out unsealed in some cases.
Nearly 90 per cent of the sociology questions were lifted from an article on the Mandal Commission judgment, written by Shelly Shan in the early 1990s, listed on the website ...

The Kshatriya-dominated Dholera township in Dhandhuka Tehsil and constituency, which PM Narendra Modi planned to develop into a world class city is a complex maze of prosperity, caste pride and farmers' protest.
While the ancient port-city in the Gulf of Khambhat is waking up to a slush of investments from developers after the then Gujarat CM Modi conceptualised to develop it into the country's first and only Smart Component City, the residents of Dholera were up in arms against any screening of the contentious Hindi movie 'Padmavati'.
'All the Chudasma Kshatriya samaj members have met the BJP leadership here telling them in clear terms that the movie should not be be screened in any city or village till its controversial aspects are not resolved," Vivek Ramanuj, a civil engineer from the village said.
A few months ago, a peasants' body Khedut Samaj (Gujarat) protested on the issue of irrigation and wrote to CM Vijay Rupani against what they called was the "refusal"of the officials to provide Narmada ...

Assets of Gujarat MLAs have gone up sharply in the last five years, including more than 13 times in the case of one and over 12 times in the case of another, an analysis by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Gujarat Election Watch (GEW) shows.
The NGOs analysed the poll affidavits of 121 sitting MLAs, who are re-contesting in the ongoing assembly elections.
"The average assets of these 121 MLAs from various parties, including independents, were at Rs7.56 crore in 2012. The average assets as per the 2017 election affidavits have gone up to Rs10.54 crore, which is an increase of Rs2.98 crore or 39% in five years," ADR and GEW said in the analysis.
The average assets of 81 re-contesting BJP MLAs increased by 57% from Rs6.82 crore to Rs10.70 crore. Similarly, average assets of 37 Congress MLAs went up by 14% from Rs8.88 crore to Rs10.12 crore, while that of two NCP MLAs rose by 3% from Rs15.61 crore to Rs16.04 crore.
Strongman Chhotu Vasava, who is contesting on Bhartiya Tribal Party symbol, saw ...

Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) leader Hardik Patel compared BJP's development theory with Ravan's Lanka.
The 24-year-old quota protest leader was addressing a rally at Patidar-dominated Nikol in Ahmedabad on Monday. He also urged people to vote BJP out in the upcoming Assembly elections.
Addressing a crowd of around 25,000 people who turned up to listen to him around 9 pm, Hardik said, "We have heard in Ramayana that there used to be Ravan's kingdom Lanka, and it was built of pure gold. King Ravana had also carried out development works, but the entire kingdom of Golden Lanka vanished because the king became arrogant.
The BJP was talking about development a week ago, but has now diverted to Ram Mandir, Hindu-Muslim and India-Pakistan. They are lying, and you should not fall in their trap."
"What would Pakistan gain from Gujarat polls? They are trying to divert the issue, but we need to stay united. Ignore all kinds of threats or fears you received or felt. Let us them show our strength; they are ...